Short-selling king Evil Kinevil told it like it is

Russell Lynch met the colourful character in 2011. With an ego to match, he got his kicks through winning – and losing - millions

Tuesday 14 October 2014 11:53 BST

Hold on, I'm just entering the last half-mile at Salisbury."

Simon Cawkwell, the self-proclaimed "Evil Kinevil" (the mis-spelling is his) and "King of the Short Sellers", kept me waiting.

Cawkwell gained his fearsome reputation in the City for mercilessly shorting the companies he takes against, backing up his accountant's acumen with hefty bets.

He announced himself to the financial world more than 20 years ago by revealing media mogul Robert Maxwell as the emperor with no clothes publishing a devastating note on the Maxwell accounts under the Evil moniker and more recently took a cool million, so he claimed, by betting against hapless Northern Rock.

But I caught the self-confessed gambling addict indulging his second great passion, betting on horseracing. And that day in 2011, on the gee-gees, he had temporarily lost his touch. He lost the race and told me he was around £200,000 in the hole on sporting punts for the year so far. Ouch.

On the markets, it was a different story. Cawkwell could never be described as modest one book he published is called Book of Boasts and he revealed with little prompting that he was around £1 million in the black on his share bets in 2011. One million was definitely his favourite number.

His longevity was itself unusual. Most shorters fade into the background and take their profits, but not Kinevil: he was, and still is, right there in the forefront, seeking validation for his intellectual superiority. Playing the markets was always going to be an ego trip: for every convinced punter, there's someone on the other end of the trade taking the polar opposite view. But more than most with Cawkwell, you get the impression that it was not enough for him to be right: you have to have known he was right.

There is also a sense that the accountant enjoyed the sense of dazzle and dare that the Evil Kinevil alter ego conferred, as well as the adrenaline of the big punts: taking on the mantle of the famed stunt-rider gave him the air of a bean-counter who wanted to be a lion-tamer.

Is he for real? One spread betting insider said: "He's a very affable chap but at the same time he's a little full of himself. He's got accounts all around the City, he's very heavily margined. A £1 million short position wouldn't be uncommon. He's had some big winners but also some spectacular losers as well."

Mention his name to spread betting firms, and you are greeted with a grin and sometimes a shudder. He's big business for spread betting houses, and sometimes big trouble. Firms that don't settle with the amount he thinks he is owed can expect a lawsuit.

Certainly, Cawkwell didn’t always get it right. Property company Regus reportedly cost him £2.5 million as the firm's shares soared when it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US in 2003. In 2011, his bet against Asos, the online fashion retailer and City darling, also looked like a loser: the shares had virtually doubled in the previous 12 months.

But if he was up for the year, it was no mean feat in the financial turmoil that saw the FTSE 100 Index tumble 15% in a matter of weeks. That why I was calling: to find out how the mythically successful gambler had been coping with the sudden plunge.

For Cawkwell, the turbulence was "profitable" he wouldn’t say by how much but interestingly, the King of Shorts had instead been filling his boots buying shares, Warren Buffett-like ("be greedy when others are fearful", said the Sage of Omaha).

The former accountant rarely traded indices, and relied on a long-honed expertise in poring over company balance sheets for his edge. He had been taking advantage of the recent turmoil to cherry-pick favoured targets. At the time, Evil said: "I've been buying a lot of stocks that look extremely cheap. I'm not bothered that they might continue to look cheap for the next six months.

"We're in a period of credit contraction, and you might ask why you should buy stocks at all. But one day people will wake up and decide they want to get in, and when that happens, these things will start to fly."

It was a sentiment you wouldn't expect to hear from someone so accustomed to betting on disaster - get in quick, while it's cheap - although he still had some high-profile targets in his sights. Mulberry, for example. Evil was convinced that the purveyor of luxury handbags had a "most fantastic valuation. One day people would realise what an overvalued company it was".

It was an interesting call against a company whose shares had more than trebled at the time after it boosted sales by 69% and quadrupled profits. He was also short of "a few interesting stocks" in the US, and had nothing but contempt for the average punter across the Pond: "US retail investors are quite unquestionably the most f***ing cretinous investors on earth. Their brains are made of ice cream and sawdust."

Harsh words, but par for the course from the son of an Oxford don with a taste for vintage wine and an obvious distaste for anybody he deems his intellectual inferior. He is 68 this October, but has no thoughts of retirement: "I enjoy it too much."

After all, what else would give him such an ego kick?

The wit and wisdom of Simon Cawkwell

'I work on the assumption that I'm intellectually superior to 99 people out of 100 and I'd give the other man a good run for his money

I think quickly and carefully. The fools panic and I don't panic

The working class are incredibly stupid. You can sell them anything if you appear to sell it sincerely

I made a quarter of a million out of Maxwell going bust, which I thought was an excellent set of affairs

Anybody who assumes it's easy will be carried out of there in a coffin, I guarantee it'